In this post, I list 7 of my all-time favorite apps / chrome extensions that I use daily. I hope I can help out some fellow uni students who are struggling. This might help make studying less painful and a tiny tiny bit more enjoyable.
Short exercise about adjective-noun-article-verb concurrence (this is not a gender-free exercise cause Italian grammar is still very related to genders and there are occasions in which is hard to find a gender-free way of writing). Make your choice and check it under the keep reading link.
1. A. Io e mio fratello sono molto felici. B. Io e mio fratello siamo molto felice. C. Io e mio fratello siamo molti felice. D. Io e mio fratello siamo molto felici.
2. A. Luigi e sua sorella va al mare. B. Luigi e sua sorella vanno al mare. C. Luigi e suo sorella vanno al mare. D. Luigi e suoi sorella vanni al mare.
3. A. La tua casa e molto grande. B. La tua casa è molto grande. C. La tue casa è molta grande. D. La tua casa è molta granda.
4. A. Lo mio gatto beve il latte. B. Il mio gatto beva il latte. C. Il mio gatto beve il latte. D. Il mio gatto beve lo latte.
5. A. Io rispondono al telefono. B. Io rispondo allo telefono. C. Io rispondo a il telefono. D. Io rispondo al telefono.
6. A. Oggi abbiamo scritto sul quaderno. B. Oggi abbiamo scritto sul cuaderno. C. Oggi abbiamo scritti sul quaderno. D. Oggi abbiamo scritto sullo quaderno.
7. A. I cani abbaia al ladro. B. I cani abbaiano al ladro. C. I cani abbaiano a lo ladro. D. Gli cani abbaiano al ladro.
Hi all! Back to share one of the latest, absolutely essential, new additions to my Korean language learning. It is called Mirinae - it is a web tool that breaks down Korean sentences into their component parts to help you understand form and structure of Korean sentences and analyse grammar even in the most complex of writing. Let’s take an indepth look under the ‘Keep Reading’ cut
The main interface looks like the image below. Extremely straight forward. Type (or copy) your text into the text bar below and hit enter. I am just going to use one of Mirinae’s pre-set examples for this demo.
It generates a break down of the sentence, identifying each component part and explaining its use within the sentence, as well as the full English meaning below.
You can click on the different grammar structures for more information, or you can collapse some of the grammar information if you want a less detailed breakdown. You can also click on each word to get more indepth meaning too. In the picture below I have simplified all the grammar fields, and clicked on the connector ‘다고 하여서’ for more information.
As well as this, Mirinae can also detect your spacing errors, so it can be perfect for checking the accuracy of your own writing. In the picture below, I copied a sentence from this Naver news article, and took the final space out to see if Mirinae would spot it.
Not just this, but it also has an awesome glossary to help you understand all those horrible grammar terms, and also a grammar reference section that you can access. It categorises grammar points by use/function, and also by level so you can make sure that you are learning grammar that is within your range. When Mirinae is analysing your work, it lets you know what level grammar you are using as well, which is quite helpful to know. The picture below is only a very very tiny snapshot of the endless grammar and idiom reference list that Mirinae has.
So….. all in all, Mirinae is a big hit in this household! I hope you can all make use of it, genuinely it is changing my life and the way that I analyse text, as well as how I write. These days, instead of checking any writing on Papago, I go through Mirinae first. It is just an extremely informative tool.
You can access Mirinae at the following URL: https://mirinae.io/#/ I don’t know how new it is, but it seems like it is pretty new on the scene and it is still in Beta mode so might have even more new and exciting updates in the near future! Let me know how everyone gets on!
Hi guys! Happy New Year (lol its January 6th - I’m so late). I hope that everyone who was celebrating had a really lovely festive season and that all of you had a nice start to the new year. Wishing you all health, happiness and huge language gains for the year ahead (haha! very important).
Before I get back to the regular type of posts for this year, I just wanted to let you all know about the Korean Book Club that I have joined. It is an initiative that was set up by someone wonderful that I follow on Instagram (ID: clickystudies) as an effort to keep all of us active with our reading goals for the year.
Here’s how it goes:
There is one common book that all of us will read throughout the whole year. [TITLE: 1일 1페이지, 세상에서 가장 짧은 교양 수업 365] (you can buy it on Google Play Store for around $6-7 or something - link here and image below) - it is a book with 365 articles so there is one text piece for every day of the year! NEAT. The articles are about a whole bunch of varied worldtopics and was only published in 2019 so it is super relevant still. The level is probably around Intermediate+ levels but a bunch of Beginners learners are also finding the text really useful for vocabulary learning so far!
If you wish to, you could post your progress using the hashtag #2021KoreanBookClub on whatever social media platform you like to use.
You can join the Discord group where each day we share notes, vocabulary lists, help each other to understand the text better, and just generally chat. If you want to be a part of the Discord group, please message clickystudies on Instagram and ask if you can join the Book Club - they will walk you through the process of joining.
I only just joined yesterday actually, so I have 6 days of reading to catch up with, but each article is distinct and standalone, so even if you are joining us late, you can just catch up in your own time - no rush at all and no pressure to read the past texts either.
The book club is a pretty social thing, but if you don’t want to join the Discord group, you could always work through the 365 book on your own, at your own pace (you don’t even need to do one a day!). Choose whatever works for you, but personally - I find the Discord channel motivating and it reminds me to read my chapter if I still haven’t read it for the day.
There are a few other books in this 365 series - one on Famous people and one on Modern Culture (both published in 2020, so super current info!), which you could also check out if you like! I guess I’ll tackle those in subsequent years. My reading list is sorted until January 2024 (hahah!!)
If you decide to join the book club, let me know! I’m @jeilylanguage on the Discord (that’s my IG name). Or if you’re going to work through the book on your own, drop me a comment or a message and let me know how you find the book! Enjoy all and good luck with your Korean reading for the year!
Feel free to edit as much as you want once you have saved your copy but please don’t redistribute as your own work.
This sheet will need some basic knowledge of how to use Sheets or Excel if you want to change the formulas but for the most part, you only need to enter dates, copy and past, and add rows and columns.
I’d recommend filling it out at the start of semester once you receive your class schedule. It does take a little while to enter everything so doing it as early as possible will give the maximum benefit!
The ‘review’ columns are formatted to fill out automatically once you enter the date in lecture column, except the test and exam dates, which will fill out once you enter the test and exam dates.
For editing the test / exam dates: the rightmost columns are for writing important dates (I put test and exam but you can change to fit you). If you add more dates, you’ll have to input the formula yourself. The test and exam revision columns are on default set to a date 7 days before the date entered. You can change the date of revision for each cell by changing the ’- 7’ part of the formula to something else. It only works for the first date entered in the date column.
In the dated columns, the cell will be highlighted if it’s today’s date as a reminder. If the highlighted dates are incorrect, please go to File > Spreadsheet settings and change the timezone! I think it defaults to Pacific Standard Time.
You can duplicate the ‘COURSE 101’ sheet to however many courses you have, and you can rename it of course.
In my personal sheet, I also added in assignment and test dates to the main column. I didn’t include it here because it’s a bit cluttery, but you can easily add in your own rows.
You can message me if you need help! I’d also appreciate suggestions on how to make this spreadsheet better if you have any!
I have some examples under the cut!
I just wanted to share some ways to customise this spreadsheet depending on your needs.
Here is what I did for my STATS class. Each new week is highlighted by the lecture no. (alternate weeks are coloured). I added a new row for assignment due dates, test dates (not shown) and also included labs.
This is what I did for my Korean course. I changed the columns because we don’t have lecture recordings but I do want myself to practice vocab on Quizlet after every lesson. I was going to add a new row for due dates but it would’ve gotten quite messy, so I made a bolded column instead.
If you aren’t already aware, https://oapen.org is a great resource that lets you access books, textbooks, academic journals, and more(!) on various topics. The best part is, all these resources are completely free.
You can download these books or view them online without even needing to make an account. It also provides information that’s clear, and allows you to export citations.
If you make an account, you can also annotate and highlight sections of the books you read.
There’s also a social element to this. You can read other people’s annotations, and you can collectively work on books with the usage of groups!
I found a really good resource to learn the word or phrase with context! It’s called Contextual Dictionary. Some of you may already know but still I share on my blog! You can simply search what you are curious about on the searching engine.
Or you have these suggestions below which are popularly searched.
If you search something, this dictionary shows all the examples so you can compare these and learn the context. It also show a simple translation by each word.
You can switch the searching language like kr-eng, eng-kr or even many other languages. I hope this helps your study and HERE’s the link. TRY IT! :)
student printables (daily + weekly + monthly planner, 30 habit tracker, class overview and timed worklog)
languages study pack (two options - 16 pages of premade tables or 8 pages of customisable/blank tables)
study planner pack (daily + weekly + monthly study planner, 10 minute planner, study plan, study tracker, subject and chapter summary, and priority breakdown)
back to school printable set (includes 2017-18 academic year calendar (monday + sunday start), semester overview, assessment + grade tracker, revision checklist, untimed weekly organiser, study session tracker)
While we’re all still inside, let’s share our study resources! We’re giving everyone 1 month VIP for FREE if you share the Super Chinese app with your followers (tumblr, insta or FB)
Download the app here and make Super Monkey proud!
Overview: This is a talk show that is no longer produced but talked about current topics, even touching on some politics in a casual, relaxed talk show in a free talk format
Today I am going to show you how I use the toggle function in OneNote to hide/show notes to use as an active recall tool when learning/reviewing listening lessons. I don’t recommend it as a replacement for pleco/anki but it helps me keep vocab related to that particular lesson in a place where I can see it easily when I review.
As you can see I am studying a ChinesePod lesson (really recommend this platform btw, I will do a separate post on it soon!)
I have noted new vocabulary under the lesson. In OneNote simply hover to the left of the word and a small arrow appears, double click with your mouse and the text indented underneath with collapse.
You can then use this to hide the Chinese when reviewing vocabulary, forcing you to actively recall vocabulary.
You may all know the TV series 非诚勿扰 but, whilst searching for some episodes of that show to watch whilst eating my dinner, I stumbled across this film. It was quite enjoyable and I think upper intermediate appropriate, there is nothing too specialized. You can watch the film below, unsubtitled. However if you are able to access Chinese media sites you can find subtitled versions.
#listeningresources #upperintermediate #film
If you don’t have anything to do on a Friday night, I recommend this film… happy weekend :)
Hi all. Lately with the virus here in China I have been stuck inside studying. I am also been watching a few new shows in my spare time lately. Here are some of my favourite for intermediate-lower advanced listeners.
Firstly, where can you watch shows?
There are an abundance of places to watch shows, especially within China but you can often find shows on Youtube or on various C/K/J-drama sites outside (though if you can it’s best to watch with only Chinese subtitles).
Tip: If you can’t understand everything, watch once with English subs, and re-watch again with Chinese subs only!
Anyway, on to my list, I have split these between TV series and reality shows:
This is a story about family life and the burden children may feel of their parents, it reflects modern day Chinese social issues. I really enjoyed this drama
2. 亲爱的，热爱的
I have just started watching this one. It is a love story and the main character became really popular in China last year!
3. 欢乐颂
This is sometimes called the Sex and the City of China, its about working women in the city of Shanghai!
Variety/reality
1. 爱情保卫战
This is one of my favourites! It’s a talk show where two people go on to solve their romantic issues and four ‘experts’ give them advice. Its spoken in very natural Chinese and is very interesting to see people arguing about “He was looking at another girl” or “he has changed since we first met” haha!
2. 非诚勿扰
This is the ‘Take me out’ of China, kinda… It’s essentially the same format without the crude jokes, tho. Sometimes they have foreigners on the show looking for love too.
3. 外国人在中国
This show is good for intermediates as there are foreigners speaking, the level is easier to understand in general and discusses basic things such as daily life. It also can give you a glimpse into people’s lives who are here studying too!
What are you favourite shows? Share them with us below!
Here are recent podcasts I have discovered that I think are suitable for intermediate learners. They are 100% or 99% in Chinese and are suitable to listen when you are on the bus, cleaning your room or eating your dinner (basically, great for studying in that ‘fragmented time’)
Additionally, if you find the RSS code for each podcast you can add it into the Feedly app so you can easily organise in one place and listen on your phone. I can do a tutorial on this if you’d like?
左右汉语 Intermediate Chinese
This podcast is presented by a single host and discusses a new phrase or chengyu in a natural way with many example sentences. It’s good for easy listening whilst learning something useful along the way.
This has resources for beginner to lower advanced. It has great dialogues with explanations and new vocab for the intermediate classes. The lower advanced podcasts are in the format of slow news segments, and the transcripts are available. The news segment resource is invaluable and something I’ve not seen elsewhere.
I podcast that is no longer active, there are about 6 episodes discussing Australian culture in slow Chinese. It perfect for us who already are familiar with western culture but hearing it discussed in Chinese. It is easy to follow and a discussion between two hosts
This is a bilingual podcast (an English native speaks English and a Chinese speaks Chinese). The discussions are interesting and not so ‘boring beginner’ topics that all podcasts discuss and become very samey. For example, one episode discusses Investing. Because there is one host speaking English you can keep up with the more difficult content and makes for easy listening. To be honest, I’d prefer if the Chinese host spoke more but it’s about even, but otherwise its a great podcast all in all.
YouTube has a lot of individual user content, a bit like the sort of make up tutorial videos you may enjoy or best is users who create those ‘tag’ videos, daily vlogs or ‘story time’ videos… such as the video below. It is best as it is natural, unscripted spoken language.
As a female that’s the sort of content I like to see and I’m sure there is content geared for people who don’t really watch make up videos etc. (if anyone could suggest more ‘male oriented content’ in the comments that would be useful too :)
On YouTube videos you can slow down the speed on the video to x.75 under settings.
I use a similar fashion for studying audios as with reading [see my previous post] and will make a detailed future post. Essentially, I post a transcript and listen several times to the audio (whilst cooking, walking, doing sport etc.) and then read the transcript once I am familiar with the audio, highlight unknown words and add to Anki for my daily vocab review, continue to listen to audios and archive at the end of the week. [I do all this using OneNote and you can see exactly how I use it in my ‘reading’ post!
If you have any useful resources or tips for efficient language learning please feel free to share :D :D
Below I outline steps when I study a new lesson in a course book. Many (at least for chinese) are in the format of - 1. new words, 2. text, 3. grammar notes + exercises, 4. comprehension exercises, 5. speaking/writing task
I thus roughly follow that structure when I study the book.
1. preview new words + add to pleco (or other dictionary that has flashcard system built in)
2. write notes on the book next to vocab if necessary
3. read the text a first time only underlining words I don’t know but don’t look them up
4. go back in and look up the words + add to pleco
5. attempt the comprehension exercises (sometimes I will do this before looking up the unknown vocab for good practice but depends on the difficulty of the text)
6. look up answers and review what was wrong
7. read grammar notes + do the accompanying exercises. sometimes I add a ‘grammar structure’ or phrase or useful example sentence into pleco using the add a custom vocabulary function (e.g. below)
8. attempt the written questions and usually type answers into a new note page in OneNote. The speaking topics aren’t something you could do by yourself easily - although you can always record yourself answering the questions. If you have a speaking teacher, exchange partner or even an online friend (e.g. Hellotalk App) you could practice a conversation based on the questions.
9. read back through the text a last time before moving on
10. outside of the specific blocks of time sitting down with the textbook, when I have a spare few minutes, waiting for the bus etc. I will play on pleco doing drills of the vocabulary added to it that week - see my previous posts on how I study, or check out ‘hackingchinese’ who has an amazing post of finding time with a ‘rock and sand and water’ model.
11. there will of course be times you don’t understand things in the textbook. I suggest you note these down, on onenote as you go along and use your teacher/exchange partner to help explain things you don’t understand.
12. another tip is to listen to the text audios if available - when you are doing other activities such as walking, cooking to squeeze precious study time in.
Do you have any tips you could share on how to learn effectively?
I have talked in a previous post about listening to an audio several times to improve listening skills. Another important aspect is slowing down the speed if it is difficult material. You can also speed audios up once you have learnt the new vocab and listened several times (i find this especially good for podcasts aimed at language learners [for example Slow Chinese/慢速中文] as they tend to be slower)
YouTube has a great function for if you want to watch some youtube video creators/TV shows + films but can’t quite listen at full speed.
There are several apps out there that can reduce/increase the speed of audio on your mobile. I currently use Audiopo
